Hunter
by wreckofherheart
Summary: You don't forget their mutated, gentle hands. The arms of an ancient creature, who held your tiny form while you cried and cried. You don't forget their forgotten language, beautiful drawings, their myths, the legends whispered in your ear while you slept.


A friend dies.

Or, something like that––you don't know what he is; you don't think you should care.

Creatures drop left and right.

Death is your friend, and so it's not his _death_ which affects you. Maybe you're expected to cry, scream at the loss of your commanding officer, but you don't necessarily feel _anything_. Your mission is final, complete and it is not your duty to mourn the deceased.

Not that you have a duty.

Your duty is _yourself_ ; that is how it's always been.

The Galactic Federation may offer you missions, but you're a Hunter who cares little for their bias. You have your own riddled history, your own demented past, unsolved and haunted. There are a great many puzzles locked away in your fractured brain, and so when they request your presence, you decline. When they ask a second time, you still decline.

Your body becomes a cage.

Some say you are hollow within; their rumours are cruel. You have a black, rotting heart––or you have no heart at all. You kill, and you murder, and blood drips like rain from your fingertips. You don't feel anything. Not anymore. You have been trained to savage any guilt, any humane emotion which could, in any way, deter you from your mission.

Some mock you for your silence. But your voice is unnecessary; a result of human evolution which you do not require in order to survive. You prefer the quiet.

From the day you met him, a monster, weighing a hundred tonnes, with swords for talons, and a glare which penetrates your very soul, your voice was snatched. The shock paralysed your system; the tragedy and trauma of facing such a beast at such a fragile age, was too much for your mind to comprehend and you _fell_. The planet crumbled beneath your tiny feet, your lungs collapsed and suddenly you weren't a little baby anymore.

The Human who gave birth to you is a mere memory; something distant. Something that doesn't exist and doesn't matter.

The Parents who raised you were murdered, bones crushed, planet destroyed––and all you have left is an ugly, _ugly_ rage.

You don't talk.

When you're shouted at by Galactic Federation Officers––the audacity––you feel nothing. When you're misunderstood, called "dumb" out of spite, it doesn't mean anything. You care little for the opinion of others, and there is no one left in the world whom you trust. The one ally you _possibly_ had is dead, and that's that.

When you're applauded, worshipped, bowed down to––it's not enough.

When asked for a name, you write it down––Samus Aran––but it's a gifted name; not one your Human mother called you, not one your Parents named you either. A name you plastered over your appearance; used as a shield of sorts. They see the name and that's all they'll ever see. Some broken, fragile thing, locked away in a suit of steel.

They begin to refer to as Bounty Hunter. They dehumanise you completely; take away your sense of feelings, your mentality, your ethics–– _just as that monster did_.

You think, they're no better.

Sometimes you miss your Parents.

Sometimes you don't.

But you never forget. You don't forget their mutated, gentle hands. The arms of an ancient creature, who held your tiny form while you cried and cried. You don't forget their forgotten language, beautiful drawings, their myths, the legends whispered in your ear while you slept. The training offered; how your Family nurtured you, transformed you into one of them; infecting you with their blood, their own powers and magnificence.

You don't forget what it's like to be feel loved––even after the fiftieth year of you never speaking, even after the sixtieth year of being alone, even after your hundredth year breathing, and you still look as young as a child.

You don't forget any of that, even when you defeat his rotting, maddened body for the very last time. Your vile enemy perished, a blast of fire and smoke.


End file.
